Two experts to teach pie-baking class

Local bakers Phoebe Lawless and April McGreger are teaming up to teach a pie-baking class at A Southern Season.

If you have ever tasted either of these bakers' desserts, you will want to take this class.

Lawless is a former pastry chef who worked for James Beard-award winning pastry chef Karen Barker at Durham's Magnolia Grill. She now runs a home-based baking business called Scratch Seasonal Artisan Baking. She sells her baked goods every Saturday at the South Estes Farmers' Market every Saturday morning in Chapel Hill.

McGreger is the former pastry chef at Lantern in Chapel Hill. She now runs a home-based business called Farmer's Daughter, selling canned goods ranging from sweet potato and blood orange butter to kimchee. She sells every Wednesday and Saturday at the Carrboro Farmers' Market.

The class will be held at noon July 17 at A Southern Season, the gourmet foods and kitchen goods store in Chapel Hill. The class costs $45 and will raise money to send a Triangle farmer to Terra Madre, Slow Food's biennial international meeting in Turino, Italy. The women will be baking double-crusted blueberry pie, coconut cream pie, summer vegetable pot pie and lemon buttermilk chess pie with blackberry crush.

To register for the class, e-mail Lawless at phoebelawless@mindspring.com by Monday.

Major in baking

If you harbor dreams of leaving your cubicle for a kitchen to become a baker, Wake Technical Community College just got approved to start offering a Baking & Pastry Arts degree program this fall.

The two-year program expands the culinary technology program's offerings from three baking courses to 11.

To find out more information about the degree program, contact Chef Caralyn House at (919) 866-5991.

House is the program's primary pastry instructor. Last year, she won the Excellence in Teaching Award from the N.C. Community College System. It is the highest honor for a North Carolina community college instructor. House was the first Wake Tech faculty member to win the award.

A new summer ale

Raleigh's Big Boss Brewing Co. is offering its new summer ale called Belle Wringer Double Wit, a Belgian ale spiced with Curacao orange and fresh ground coriander. The beer is now available at Big Boss' own Horniblow's Tavern, which is at 1249 Wicker Drive, Raleigh, and soon will be appearing on tap at Triangle bars that stock their ales.